Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on August 12, 2015

There is only one group of people on earth that claims to be what it is not: The Ashkenazi Jews. They are a European people who have nothing in common with the original Arab Jews except for having converted to Judaism in the 8th century. Finding an Ashkenazi Jew who would accept the obvious that they could not possibly be from Palestine is like finding a needle in a haystack. They don't exist. They all claim to be 'Israelites'. They do look in the mirror and staring back at them is none other than a European. But fact, reality, history do not matter. These people have decided it is better to be 'chosen' than not.

The Ashkeenazi Jews make up 90% of world Jewry, and the rest are Arab, African, Asian, South American Jews. 95% of Jews in North America are Ashkenazi Jews of European origin.

This is a great video, because the person speaking in the background - Ralph Schoenman is an Ashkenazi Jew himself, who laughs at the claims of other Ashkenazi Jews to being from Palestine,

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ASHKENAZI JEWS = KHAZARS - YouTube

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Posted By admin on August 11, 2015

Review

Fascinating book. I couldnt put it down. (Sean Hannity, Fox News)

Explosive . . . a story that feels like a long-lost Abrahamic fable that has morphed into contemporary history. (David Grant, Christian Science Monitor)

. . . more incendiary than any roadside IED (GQ)

reads with the page-turning ease of a great thriller. (Claudia Rosett, Forbes)

The Israelis issued this book as a kind of propaganda. (Hamas terrorist leader Osama Hamdan, Amanpour, CNN International)

. . . offers a view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict few others could provide. (International Fellowship of Christians and Jews)

. . . a Le Carresque thriller wrapped in a spiritual coming-of-age story . . . (Matthew Kaminski, The Wall Street Journal) --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Before the age of twenty-one, Mosab Hassan Yousef saw things no one should ever see: abject poverty, abuse of power, torture, and death. He witnessed the behind-the-scenes dealings of top Middle Eastern leaders who make headlines around the world. He was trusted at the highest levels of Hamas and participated in the Intifada. He was held captive deep inside Israels most feared prison facility. His dangerous choices and unlikely journey through dark places made him a traitor in the eyes of people he lovesand gave him access to extraordinary secrets. On the pages of this book, he exposes events and processes that to this point have been known only by a handful of individuals. . . . Mosab Hassan (Joseph) Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding leader of Hamas, internationally recognized as a terrorist organization and responsible for countless suicide bombings and other deadly attacks against Israel. An integral part of the movement, Mosab was imprisoned several times by the Israeli internal intelligence service. After a chance encounter with a British tourist, he started a six-year quest that jeopardized Hamas, endangered his family, and threatened his life. He has since embraced the teachings of Jesus and sought political asylum in America. Ron Brackin has traveled extensively in the Middle East as an investigative journalist. He was in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Gaza, and Jerusalem during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. He was on assignment in Baghdad after the fall of Iraq and more recently with the rebels and refugees of southern Sudan and Darfur. He has contributed articles and columns to many publications, including USA Today and the Washington Times. Ron served as a broadcast journalist and a congressional press secretary in Washington after graduating from the University of Marylands Philip Merrill College of Journalism. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal ...

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Posted By admin on August 11, 2015

The Golan Heights (Arabic: Habatu 'l-Jawln or Murtafatu l-Jawln, Hebrew: , Ramat ha-Golan (audio)(helpinfo)), or simply the Golan or the Syrian Golan, is a region in the Levant. The exact region defined as the Golan Heights is different in different disciplines: As a geological and biogeographical region, the Golan Heights is a basaltic plateau bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, Mount Hermon in the north, and the Raqqad Wadi in the east. The western two-thirds of this region are currently occupied by Israel, whereas the eastern third is controlled by Syria.. As a geopolitical region, the Golan Heights is the area captured from Syria and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War, territory which Israel effectively annexed in 1981. This region includes the western two-thirds of the geological Golan Heights, as well as the Israeli-occupied part of Mount Hermon.. The earliest evidence of human habitation dates to the Upper Paleolithic period. According to the Bible, an Amorite Kingdom in Bashan was conquered by Israelites during the reign of King Og. Throughout the Old Testament period, the Golan was "the focus of a power struggle between the Kings of Israel and the Aramaeans who were based near modern-day Damascus." The Itureans, an Arab or Aramaic people, settled there in the 2nd century BCE and remained until the end of the Byzantine period. Organized Jewish settlement in the region came to an end in 636 CE when it was conquered by Arabs under Umar ibn al-Khattb. In the 16th century, the Golan was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and was part of the Vilayet of Damascus until it was transferred to French control in 1918. When the mandate terminated in 1946, it became part of the newly independent Syrian Arab Republic. Internationally recognized as Syrian territory, the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel since 1967. It was captured during the 1967 Six-Day War, establishing the Purple Line. On 19 June 1967, the Israeli cabinet voted to return the Golan to Syria in exchange for a peace agreement. Such overtures were dismissed by the Arab world with the Khartoum Resolution on September 1, 1967. In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel agreed to return about 5% of the territory to Syrian civilian control. This part was incorporated into a demilitarised zone that runs along the ceasefire line and extends eastward. This strip is under the military control of UN peace keeping forces. Construction of Israeli settlements began in the remainder of the territory held by Israel, which was under military administration until Israel passed the Golan Heights Law extending Israeli law and administration throughout the territory in 1981. This move was condemned by the United Nations Security Council in UN Resolution 497, which said that "the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect." Israel asserts it has a right to retain the Golan, citing the text of UN Resolution 242, which calls for "safe and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force". However, the international community rejects Israeli claims to title to the territory and regards it as sovereign Syrian territory. Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ehud Olmert each stated that they were willing to exchange the Golan for peace with Syria. However, in 2010, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Syria to abandon its dreams of recovering the Golan Heights.Approximately 10% of Syrian Golan Druze have accepted Israeli citizenship. According to the CIA World Factbook, as of 2010, "there are 41 Israeli settlements and civilian land use sites in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights."

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Posted By simmons on August 11, 2015

This article is about the mother of Barack Obama. For the British equestrian, see Anne Dunham. Ann Dunham

Ann Dunham in 1960

Stanley Ann Dunham (November 29, 1942 November 7, 1995) was the mother of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, and an American anthropologist who specialized in economic anthropology and rural development.[1] Dunham was known as Stanley Dunham through high school, then as Ann Dunham, Ann Obama, Ann Soetoro, Ann Sutoro (after her second divorce), and finally as Ann Dunham.[2] Born in Wichita, Kansas, Dunham spent her childhood in California, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, her teenage years in Mercer Island, Washington, and most of her adult life in Hawaii and Indonesia.[3]

Dunham studied at the EastWest Center and at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu, where she attained a bachelor's in anthropology[4] and master's and Ph.D. in anthropology.[5] She also attended University of Washington at Seattle in 1961-1962. Interested in craftsmanship, weaving and the role of women in cottage industries, Dunham's research focused on women's work on the island of Java and blacksmithing in Indonesia. To address the problem of poverty in rural villages, she created microcredit programs while working as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development. Dunham was also employed by the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and she consulted with the Asian Development Bank in Gujranwala, Pakistan. Towards the latter part of her life, she worked with Bank Rakyat Indonesia, where she helped apply her research to the largest microfinance program in the world.[5]

After her son was elected President, interest renewed in Dunham's work: The University of Hawaii held a symposium about her research; an exhibition of Dunham's Indonesian batik textile collection toured the United States; and in December 2009, Duke University Press published Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, a book based on Dunham's original 1992 dissertation. Janny Scott, an author and former New York Times reporter, published a biography about Ann Dunham's life titled A Singular Woman in 2011. Posthumous interest has also led to the creation of The Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowment in the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa, as well as the Ann Dunham Soetoro Graduate Fellowships, intended to fund students associated with the EastWest Center (EWC) in Honolulu, Hawaii.[6]

In an interview, Barack Obama referred to his mother as "the dominant figure in my formative years... The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics."[7]

Dunham was born on November 29, 1942 at Saint Francis Hospital in Wichita, Kansas,[8] the only child of Madelyn Lee Payne and Stanley Armour Dunham.[9] She was of predominantly English ancestry, with some German, Swiss, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry.[10]Wild Bill Hickok is her sixth cousin, five times removed.[11]

Ancestry.com announced on July 30, 2012, after using a combination of old documents and yDNA analysis, that Dunham's mother may have been descended from African John Punch, who was an indentured servant/slave in seventeenth-century colonial Virginia.[12][13]

Her parents were born in Kansas and met in Wichita, where they married on May 5, 1940.[14] After the attack on Pearl Harbor, her father joined the United States Army and her mother worked at a Boeing plant in Wichita.[15] According to Dunham, she was named after her father because he wanted a son, though her relatives doubt this story and her maternal uncle recalled that her mother named Dunham after her favorite actress Bette Davis' character in the film In This Our Life because she thought it sounded sophisticated.[16] As a child and teenager she was known as Stanley.[2] Other children teased her about her name but she used it through high school, "apologizing for it each time she introduced herself in a new town".[17] By the time Dunham began attending college, she was known by her middle name, Ann, instead.[2] After World War II, Dunham's family moved from Wichita to California while her father attended the University of California, Berkeley. In 1948, they moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma, and from there to Vernon, Texas, and then to El Dorado, Kansas.[18] In 1955, the family moved to Seattle, Washington, where her father was employed as a furniture salesman and her mother worked as vice president of a bank. They lived in an apartment complex in the Wedgwood neighborhood where she attended Nathan Eckstein Junior High School.[19]

In 1956, Dunham's family moved to Mercer Island, an Eastside suburb of Seattle. Dunham's parents wanted their 13-year-old daughter to attend the newly opened Mercer Island High School.[7] At the school, teachers Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman taught the importance of challenging social norms and questioning authority to the young Dunham, and she took the lessons to heart: "She felt she didn't need to date or marry or have children." One classmate remembered her as "intellectually way more mature than we were and a little bit ahead of her time, in an off-center way",[7] and a high school friend described her as knowledgeable and progressive: "If you were concerned about something going wrong in the world, Stanley would know about it first. We were liberals before we knew what liberals were." Another called her "the original feminist".[7]

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Posted By simmons on August 11, 2015

Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities in the world. This period ended definitively with the Alhambra decree of 1492, as a result of which they were forced to convert to Catholicism, go into exile, or be killed. The Castilian Muslims suffered the same fate in 1500, and a generation later those of Aragn and Valencia.

An estimated 13,000 to 40,000 Jews live in Spain today.[1][2] The remnants of the Spanish (and Portuguese) Jews, the Sephardic Jews, though the worldwide figure is extremely hard to attain[3] specifically for Jews coming from countries where there was a monetary and social disincentive for having a Jewish background (see Marranos for one example), and for various other reasons, on the other end because there are those who just choose the Sephardic set of customs or Hebrew pronunciation. The number of Jews of Sephardic lineage in Israel was put just over 60% of the overall Israeli Jewish and non-Jewish populations in 1990[4] and Sepharadi Jews tend to have a much higher birth-rate than the more secular oriented Ashkenazi classification of Jews.[citation needed] The Jews of Spain spoke Ladino, a Romance language derived mainly from Old Castilian, Judeo-Catalan and Hebrew[citation needed]. The relationship of Ladino to Castilian Spanish is comparable to that of Yiddish to German[citation needed]. Nowadays, Jews in Spain speak Spanish, while Ladino is still used in Israel[citation needed].

Some associate the country of Tarshish, as mentioned in the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, I Kings, Jonah and Romans, with a locale in southern Spain.[citation needed] In generally describing Tyre's empire from west to east, Tarshish is listed first (Ezekiel 27.1214), and in Jonah 1.3 it is the place to which Jonah sought to flee from the Lord; evidently it represents the westernmost place to which one could sail.[citation needed]

The link between Jews and Tarshish is clear. One might speculate that commerce conducted by Jewish emissaries, merchants, craftsmen, or other tradesmen among the Semitic Tyrean Phoenicians might have brought them to Tarshish. Although the notion of Tarshish as Spain is merely based on suggestive material, it leaves open the possibility of a very early, although perhaps limited, Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula.[citation needed]

More substantial evidence of Jews in Spain comes from the Roman era.[citation needed] Although the spread of the Jews into Europe is most commonly associated with the Diaspora, which ensued from the Roman conquest of Judea, emigration from Eretz Yisrael into the greater Roman Mediterranean area antedated the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans under Titus. In his Facta et dicta memorabilia, Valerius Maximus makes reference to Jews and Chaldaeans being expelled from Rome in 139 BCE for their "corrupting" influences.[5] According to Josephus, King Agrippa attempted to discourage the Jews of Jerusalem from rebelling against Roman authority by reference to Jews throughout the Roman Empire and elsewhere; Agrippa warned that "the danger concerns not those Jews that dwell here only, but those of them which dwell in other cities also; for there is no people upon the habitable earth which do not have some portion of you among them, whom your enemies might slay, in case you go to war..."[6]

The Provenal Rabbi and scholar, Rabbi Abraham ben David, wrote in anno 1161: A tradition exists with the [Jewish] community of Granada that they are from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, of the descendants of Judah and Benjamin, rather than from the villages, the towns in the outlying districts [of Palestine].[7] When exactly these Jewish immigrants first settled in Spain is not clear, as there are references to two Jewish influxes into Spain, one following the destruction of Israels First Temple and the other after the destruction of the Second.

The earliest mention of Spain[citation needed] is, allegedly, found in Obadiah 1:20: And the exiles of this host of the sons of Israel who are among the Canaanites as far as arfat (Heb. ), and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the south. While the medieval lexicographer, David ben Abraham Al-Alfs, identifies arfat with the city of arfend (Judeo-Arabic: ),[8] the word Sepharad (Heb. ) in the same verse has been translated by the 1st century rabbinic scholar, Yonathan Ben Uzziel, as Aspamia.[9] Based on a later teaching in the compendium of Jewish oral laws compiled by Rabbi Judah Hanasi in 189 CE, known as the Mishnah, Aspamia is associated with a very far place, generally thought of as Hispania, or Spain.[10] In circa 960 CE, isdai ibn apr, minister of trade in the court of the Caliph in Crdoba, wrote to Joseph, the king of Khazaria, saying: The name of our land in which we dwell is called in the sacred tongue, Sepharad, but in the language of the Arabs, the indwellers of the lands, Alandalus [Andalusia], the name of the capital of the kingdom, Crdoba.[11]

According to Rabbi David Kimchi (11601235), in his commentary on Obadiah 1:20, arfat and Sepharad, both, refer to the Jewish captivity (Heb. galut) expelled during the war with Titus and who went as far as the countries Alemania (Germany), Escalona,[12] France and Spain. The names arfat and Sepharad are explicitly mentioned by him as being France and Spain, respectively. Some scholars think that, in the case of the place-name, arfat (lit. arfend) which, as noted, was applied to the Jewish Diaspora in France, the association with France was made only exegetically because of its similarity in spelling with the name (France), by a reversal of its letters.

Spanish Jew, Moses de Len (ca. 1250 1305), mentions a tradition concerning the first Jewish exiles, saying that the vast majority of the first exiles driven away from the land of Israel during the Babylonian captivity refused to return, for they had seen that the Second Temple would be destroyed like the first.[13] In yet another teaching, passed down later by Moses ben Machir in the 16th century, an explicit reference is made to the fact that Jews have lived in Spain since the destruction of the First Temple:[14]

Similarly, Gedaliah ibn Jechia the Spaniard has written:[15]

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Posted By richards on August 10, 2015

Un article de Wikipdia, l'encyclopdie libre.

Une synagogue (du grec / Sunagg, assemble adapt de l'hbreu (Beit Knesset), maison de l'assemble) est un lieu de culte juif[1].

L'origine de la synagogue, c'est--dire d'un lieu de rassemblement des fidles dissoci de l'ancien rituel de l'autel du Temple, remonte peut-tre aux prophtes et leurs disciples[2]; originellement elle ne possde pas un caractre sacr, mais l'acquiert au fil du temps[3]. La synagogue en tant qu'institution caractristique du judasme naquit avec l'uvre d'Esdras. Elle y a depuis pris une telle importance que la Synagogue en vient dsigner figurativement le systme du judasme, par opposition l'glise[4].

Les synagogues possdent habituellement un sanctuaire, c'est--dire un grand hall de prire, dans lequel sont contenus les Livres de la Torah. Elles peuvent aussi comporter une salle pour les vnements communautaires. Cependant, elles contiennent surtout des petites pices rserves l'tude, voire un Beit midrash (maison d'tude): c'est que, bien qu'initialement destine au culte, la synagogue devient au cours de l'histoire juive le lieu du Talmud Torah, c'est--dire l'enseignement de la tradition et de la langue hbraque, que ce soit pour les enfants ou les adultes. La prpondrance de ce rle est telle que Philon d'Alexandrie[5], puis les Juifs de Venise et ceux des pays ashknazes parlant le yiddish dsignaient les synagogues du nom de didaskaleia, scuola ou (shoul, cf. all. Schule), c'est--dire cole. Ce nom est toujours utilis pour dsigner les synagogues de manire informelle, surtout dans les milieux ashknazes.

Philon d'Alexandrie et le Nouveau Testament utilisent aussi le terme proseuque du grec ancien prire puis lieu de prire.

Ni le terme, ni le concept d'une synagogue ne se retrouvent dans le Pentateuque (bien que la tradition rabbinique[6] ainsi que Philon d'Alexandrie[7] et Flavius Josphe[8] affirment que l'institution remonte Mose). L'ide d'une prire collective n'y est pas davantage mentionne, et le seul lieu du culte dcrit est le Tabernacle, un sanctuaire transportable abritant en son Saint des Saints l'Arche d'alliance. Celle-ci se retrouve dans le Temple de Salomon, construit pour l'abriter de faon permanente.

La premire vocation d'un rassemblement hors du Temple est trouve dans Isae 8:16[9]: il s'agit d'un cercle de disciples runis autour d'Isae, afin d'entendre de lui la parole de Dieu et la Torah. C'est galement le cas dans zchiel 8:1[10], o les anciens de Juda se runissent dans la maison d'Ezchiel. Le psaume 74:8[11] probablement dat du premier exil, mentionne les centres consacrs Dieu dans le pays.

Il semblerait que les synagogues se soient multiplies aprs la destruction du premier et du second Temples: selon une tradition rabbinique consigne dans la Mishnah (laquelle fut compile vers 200 EC, plus d'un sicle aprs la destruction du second Temple), une grande ville compte obligatoirement dix batlanim, sinon c'est un village[12]; un batlan tant dfini comme un individu renonant son travail pour aller prier, la Mishna enseigne qu'il existe une synagogue en tout endroit o un minyan de dix hommes est capable, n'importe quel moment, de se runir pour prier. Les Actes des Aptres indiquent galement que les synagogues que l'on trouvait dans chaque ville existaient depuis de nombreuses annes (Actes 15:21), et en citent plusieurs, dont celle des Affranchis, celle des Cyrnens et celle des Alexandrins.

Le Talmud mentionne de nombreuses synagogues en Msopotamie, dont celle de Nharda, et plus de 400 synagogues Jrusalem avant la destruction du second Temple (Keritot 105a), tandis que les vangiles voquent celles de Nazareth[13] et de Capharnam[14]. Paul prche dans les synagogues de Damas[15], de Salamine en Chypre[16], d'Antioche[17], etc.

La chute du second Temple amplifie l'importance de la synagogue, car c'est l que seront perptus les rites du Temple l'exception capitale du sacrifice et c'est dans les synagogues que pourra se runir le minyan compos de 10 hommes[12]. Les synagogues vont donc se multiplier dans la diaspora. Celle d'Alexandrie dcrite dans le Talmud tait norme puisque le chantre y indiquait aux fidles l'aide de drapeaux quand dire Amen[18].

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Posted By simmons on August 9, 2015

The name of God in Judaism used most often in the Hebrew Bible is (YHWH), also known as the Tetragrammaton. Elohim (God, singular and plural form, depending on the context), and Adonai (master), are regarded by rabbinic Judaism not as names, but as epithets or titles reflecting different aspects of God. Elohim is the aspect of justice, and Adonai the aspect of mercy.[1]

The name of God in Judaism used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the four-letter name (YHWH), also known as the Tetragrammaton (Greek for "four letters"). The Tetragrammaton appears 6,828 times in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia edition of the Hebrew Masoretic Text. It first appears at Genesis 2:4 and is usually translated as the LORD in many English language Bibles, although Jehovah or Yahweh are employed in others.

The Hebrew letters are (right to left) Yodh, He, Waw and He (). It is written as YHWH, YHVH, or JHVH in English, depending on the transliteration convention that is used. YHWH is thought to be an archaic third person singular imperfect of the verb "to be" (meaning, therefore, "He is"). This interpretation agrees with the meaning of the name given in Exodus 3:14 where God is represented as speaking, and hence as using the first person ("I am").

The name ceased to be pronounced in Second Temple Judaism, by the 3rd century BCE.[2]Rabbinical Judaism teaches that the name is forbidden to be uttered except by the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) in the inner sanctum (Kodesh ha-Kadoshim, or Holy of Holies) of the Temple on Yom Kippur. Throughout the service, the High Priest pronounced the name YHWH (or Yehowah) "just as it is written"[3] in each blessing he made. When the people standing in the Temple courtyard heard the name they prostrated themselves flat on the floor.

Passages such as: "And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, YHWH [be] with you. And they answered him, YHWH bless thee." (Ruth 2:4), indicates the name was still being pronounced at the time of the redaction of the Hebrew Bible in the 6th or 5th century BCE. The prohibition against verbalizing the name did not apply to the forms of the name within theophoric names (the prefixes yeho-, yo-, and the suffixes -yahu, -yah) and their pronunciation remains in use.

There is nothing in the Torah to prohibit the saying of the name,[4] but modern Jews never pronounce YHWH, instead, Jews say Adonai ("Lord"). The Jewish Publication Society translation of 1917, in online versions, uses YHWH once at Exodus 6:3.

Ehyeh asher ehyeh (Hebrew: ) is the first of three responses given to Moses when he asks for God's name (Exodus 3:14). The King James version of the Bible translates the Hebrew as "I Am that I Am" and uses it as a proper name for God. The Aramaic Targum Onkelos leaves the phrase untranslated and is so quoted in the Talmud (B. B. 73a.[clarification needed])

Ehyeh is the first-person singular imperfect form of hayah, "to be". Ehyeh is usually translated "I will be", since the imperfect tense in Hebrew denotes actions that are not yet completed (e.g. Exodus 3:12, "Certainly I will be [ehyeh] with thee.").[5] Asher is an ambiguous pronoun which can mean, depending on context, "that", "who", "which", or "where".[5]

Although Ehyeh asher ehyeh is generally rendered in English "I am that I am", better renderings might be "I will be what I will be" or "I will be who I will be", or "I shall prove to be whatsoever I shall prove to be" or even "I will be because I will be".[6] Other renderings include: Leeser, I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE; Rotherham, "I Will Become whatsoever I please." Greek, Ego eimi ho on ( ), "I am The Being" in the Septuagint,[7] and Philo,[8][9] and Revelation[10] or, "I am The Existing One"; Lat., ego sum qui sum, "I am Who I am."[11]

"Jah" appears often in theophoric names, such as Elijah, Adonijah, or Hallelujah. Found in the King James Version of the Bible at Psalm 68:4.

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Posted By simmons on August 9, 2015

The history of Jewish community of Serbia goes back about two thousand years. Jews first arrived in what is now Serbia in Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions found refuge in Ottoman-ruled areas, including Serbia. Jewish communities flourished in the Balkans until the turmoil of World War I. The surviving communities, including that of Serbia, were almost completely destroyed in the Holocaust during World War II.

Jews first arrived on the territory of present-day Serbia in Roman times, although there is little documentation prior to the 10th century.

The Jewish communities of the Balkans were boosted in the 15th and 16th centuries by the arrival of Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire welcomed the Jewish refugees into his Empire. Jews became involved in trade between the various provinces in the Ottoman Empire, becoming especially important in the salt trade.[3]

Many Jews were involved in the struggle of Serbs for independence from the Ottoman Empire, by supplying arms to the local Serbs, and the Jewish communities faced brutal reprisal attacks from the Ottoman Turks.[3] The independence struggle lasted until 1830, when Serbia gained its independence.

The new Serbian government was not friendly toward the Jewish community, and by 1831 there were prohibitions against Jews entering some professions. The situation for the Jews briefly improved under the rule of Prince Mihailo Obrenovi III (18391842), but anti-Jewish provisions were reinstated under Prince Alexander Karaorevi (18421858).[citation needed]

With the reclamation of the Serbian throne by the Royal House of Obrenovi under Milo Obrenovi in 1858, restrictions on Jewish merchants were again relaxed, but three years later, in 1861 Mihailo III inherited the throne and reinstated anti-Jewish restrictions.[3] In 1877 a Jewish candidate was elected to the National Assembly for the first time, after receiving the backing of all parties.[4][5]

The waxing and waning of the fortunes of the Jewish community according to the ruler continued to the end of the 19th century, when the Serbian parliament lifted all anti-Jewish restrictions in 1889.[3]

In 1879, the "Serbian-Jewish Singer Society" was founded in Belgrade as a part of the Serbian-Jewish friendship. Renamed "Baruch Brothers Choir" in 1950, it is one of the oldest Jewish choirs in the world still in existence.[6] By 1912, the Jewish community of Kingdom of Serbia stood at 5,000.[3] Serbian-Jewish relations reached a high degree of cooperation during World War I, when Jews and Serbs fought side by side against the Central Powers.[7]

While the rest of Serbia was still ruled by the Ottoman Empire, territory of present-day Vojvodina was part of the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1782, Emperor Joseph II issued the Edict of Tolerance, giving Jews some measure of religious freedom. The Edict attracted Jews to many parts of the Monarchy. The Jewish communities of Vojvodina flourished, and by the end of the 19th century the region had nearly 40 Jewish communities.[8]

In the aftermath of World War I, Montenegro, Banat, Baka, Syrmia, and Baranja joined Serbia through popular vote in those regions, and this Greater Serbia then united with State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (from which Syrmia had seceded to join Serbia) to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was soon renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Serbia's relatively small Jewish community of 13,000 (including 500 in Kosovo),[9] combined with the large Jewish communities of the other Yugoslav territories, numbering some 51,700. In the inter-war years (19191939), the Jewish communities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia flourished.

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Posted By simmons on August 9, 2015

Reflections & Religion

This essay is a continuation of a previous post, The Jewish Way.

Matthew 5:20, Christian Bible

Matthew 10: 5-6, Christian Bible

One of the most common themes in literature is teshuvah, or return and repentance. I am not a follower of the Christian tradition by any means, but one of the most famous stories that focuses on this theme in the Christian faith is The Prodigal Son.

It is a touching parable attributed to Jesus of Nazareth about a wayward son who asks for his inheritance when his father is still alivea real slap in the face of traditionsquanders it living the high life, and ends up destitute and feeding the pigs, an unkosher animal that symbolizes non-Jewish ways and traditions. He eventually makes it home, expecting to be treated with contempt, but is instead received in kindness and joy as a king.

In the Christian tradition, the story is significant in that it speaks about God's patient and enduring love for humanity in general and his love for his own, in this case, followers of the Christian church in particular. There is no getting way from that reality when one reads the Christian interpretation of the story, even from the most liberal and Judaic-knowledgeable and -aware sources.

Even so, the conventional Christian interpretation, as full of humanity and humility it contains, surely misses the mark. Unfortunately, this view, even shared by Christian scholars and theologians of first-rank minds, fails to take into account a few essential points. In short, the whole social and cultural history of the parable and frame it within the proper context.

That being said, I would like to add another interpretation of this famous and well-liked parable. A midrash so to speak, in a sort of inquiry to the narrative's meaning. I am not a biblical scholar or a Judaic studies scholar, but I am fairly familiar with the biblical narratives contained in the main books of both Judaism and Christianity and the traditions that inform them. So I say this not without knowledge or thought. The story of the Prodigal Son is actually about Jewish teshuvah or return to Jewish ways and values.

That is, the story is directed only at Jesus' co-religionists at the time, his fellow Jews. His message is directly aimed at the idea of maintaining their Jewish ways and traditions, even in the face of opposition and the temptation to assimilate into the larger surrounding culture of Hellenistic Greece, which still had resonance in Roman-conqueredJudea. There is no getting away from that fact, and I am not sure how Christians today can read anything but that essential truth into the story.

Originally posted here:
Perry J Greenbaum: The Jewish Prodigal

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Posted By simmons on August 9, 2015

This article is on the historical emigration from Africa. See recent African origin of modern humans for pre-historic human migration and emigration from Africa for recent migration.

The African diaspora refers to the communities throughout the world that are descended from the historic movement of peoples from Africa, predominantly to the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, among other areas around the globe. The term has been historically applied in particular to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas in the Atlantic slave trade, with the largest population in Brazil (see Afro-Brazilian), followed by the USA[1] and others.[2] Some scholars identify "four circulatory phases" of migration out of Africa.[3]

The term has also less commonly been used to refer to recent emigration from Africa.[4] The African Union defines the African diaspora as:

"[consisting] of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union." Its constitutive act declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union."

The phrase "African diaspora" was coined during the 1990s, and gradually entered common usage during the 2000s. Use of the term "diaspora" is modelled after the concept of Jewish diaspora.[5]

Much of the African diaspora was dispersed throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas during the Arab and the Atlantic slave trades. Beginning in the 8th century, Arabs took African slaves from the central and eastern portions of the continent (where they were known as the Zanj) and sold them into markets in the Middle East and eastern Asia. Beginning in the 15th century, Europeans captured or bought African slaves from West Africa and brought them to Europe and primarily, in much greater number, to the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade ended in the 19th century, and the Arab Slave Trade ended in the middle of the 20th century.[6] The dispersal through slave trading represents the largest forced migrations in human history. The economic effect on the African continent was devastating, as generations of young people were taken from their communities and societies were disrupted. Some communities created by descendants of African slaves in Europe and Asia have survived to the modern day. In other cases, blacks intermarried with non-blacks, and their descendants blended into the local population.

In the Americas, the confluence of multiple ethnic groups from around the world created multi-ethnic societies. In Central and South America, most people are descended from European, indigenous American, and African ancestry. In Brazil, where in 1888 nearly half the population was descended from African slaves, the variation of physical characteristics extends across a broad range. In the United States, there was historically a greater European colonial population in relation to African slaves, especially in the Northern Tier. There was considerable racial intermarriage in colonial Virginia, and other racial mixing during the slavery and post-Civil War years. Racist Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws passed after the Reconstruction era in the South in the late nineteenth century, plus waves of vastly increased immigration from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, maintained some distinction between racial groups. In the early 20th century, to institutionalize racial segregation, most southern states adopted the "one drop rule", which defined and recorded anyone with any discernible African ancestry as black, even of obvious majority white or Native American ancestry.[7] One of the results of this implementation was the loss of records of Indian-identified groups, who were classified only as black because of being mixed race.

See Emigration from Africa for a general treatment of voluntary population movements since the late 20th century.

From the very onset of Spanish exploration and colonial activities in the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africans participated both as voluntary expeditionaries and as involuntary laborers.[2][8]Juan Garrido was such an African conquistador. He crossed the Atlantic as a freedman in the 1510s and participated in the siege of Tenochtitlan.[9] Africans had been present in Asia and Europe long before Columbus' travels. Beginning in the late 20th century, Africans began to emigrate to Europe and the Americas in increasing numbers, constituting new African Diaspora communities not directly connected with the slave trade.

The African Union defined the African diaspora as "[consisting] of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union." Its constitutive act declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union."

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African diaspora - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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